One of my clients is paralyzed with doubt and fear. He says “I wish I knew what I wanted. I wish I didn’t feel so paralyzed. Every decision is hard for me. Why can’t my life be easy like other people?”

The Drunk Monkey strikes again. Fear and doubt are important mechanisms of The Drunk Monkey (your mind). Fear and doubt are guiding forces away from potential danger. The problem for most people, including my client, is that life is not dangerous at all. Not knowing what to do with your life is not dangerous. Therefore when you are in fear and doubt just notice how you are hallucinating that something bad is going to happen and you are avoiding that illusion.

The second part of my client’s statement is “Why can’t my life be easy like other people?”. Again, this is a misperception. After coaching more than 8300 people to achieve happiness and success I can tell you with certainty that lives look easy on the outside but everyone’s monkey makes it difficult on the inside.

Life isn’t hard. Your resistance to what life is makes it hard. If you will pause and see The Drunk Monkey madness in your head for what it is, then you will be able to let it go and move forward again.

A client of mine is between a rock and a hard place. Like millions of people in America today, this person thought that buying a kind of real estate, over-leveraging, and betting on speculation was the smart thing to do. It has since blown up in her face and now she finds herself making a lot of money, but owing more than she makes every month.

The key is to let it all go, and this has been a tough process. Admitting that she has not accomplished what she set out to accomplish or that admitting that she made a mistake is the absolute critical first step. She’s embarrassed. She doesn’t want to look bad. She’s afraid of what people will think. These negative future prophecies that her mind is hitting her with keep her stuck and not moving forward. She has not been taking the action she knew she needed to take 18 months ago, so here we are today in a much worse position.

This is the same kind of behavior that I suppose gambling addicts have. They just keep thinking, the next time I’m going to win, the next month, I’m going to win, the one next one I’m going to win, and then I’ll bring it all back, and I’ll be victorious, but ultimately, it has shot her in the foot, and she has lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. The key is to just admit it and let it all go, to know that if you have built it once, you can build it again, that people make mistakes. Disney even went bankrupt, and he was a pretty smart guy who built a pretty amazing thing. It’s okay to admit your failures and let it all go.

A long time friend was transcribing one of my event recordings for me. In it I discuss my 8-step manifesting process which I teach in the Instant Manifestation Now course. He calls me up in the middle of the process, “Does this Law of Attraction thing really work? Sounds like a bunch of new age bull s*** if you ask me.” he says.

This friend prides himself on being a cynic. I explain to him that the Law of Attraction is just a new-fangled term for a long understood concept, “You become what you think about”. He says, “I want to be in the travel writing business and I’m not sure how to do it.” I say, “Follow the 8 steps and just know that it’s coming.” He kinda snorts and says, “Whatever!”

About a year goes by and my friend gets the urge to move from NYC to Portland to be closer to his father. Two weeks into his new job search he ends up at the offices of a well-known travel website. They hire him on the spot and now the cynic spends his life traveling and writing about it. Does the Law of Attraction work for cynics? Yes. But usually cynics are so busy being cynical that they attract all the crap they don’t want, which, of course, justifies their cynicism.

Yesterday I posted a thought about how positive people rarely deal with their negativity because they feel it will make them negative. I proposed that the problem with not dealing with the negativity that lurks below the surface is that it seeps out of you in ways that others can sense. You end up becoming a rose garden with a sewer underneath. I had some great comments on various social sites that I wanted to address.

Negativity is neutralized by becoming aware of its source. I define negativity as the resistance you have to what is so. Life is just lifing along and then you are resisting what ever it is doing. The past is simply a figment of your imagination that you are now resisting. The future is a hallucination you are having that you are resisting. People are just doing whatever they are doing and you are reacting to your opinion of what they are doing. It’s not what they are doing that bothers you, it is your opinion about what they are doing that is bothering you.

In a nutshell, your opinion is the source of your negativity. And where does this opinion come from? Your infinite wisdom? NO! The Drunk Monkey in your head!!!! All hail the great and wise Drunk Monkey. You have been conditioned like a dog to think that “this is the right way to pee! That is the right way to dress! Those are the right behaviors!” But all of that is just your parents or whoever raised you doing their best to get you ready for life. What you believe about the world is not the truth. What you believe is just conditioning. Today, just roll with life and watch negativity dissipate before your eyes.

As a life coach, my job is to help people see the truth so that they can accept it, transform it and move forward. This is difficult for most positive people. Why? Because positive thinking has been taught to so many of us as “the way” when in fact, it is the impact of a particular perspective.

Meaning, when you adopt positive modes of thinking, you are practicing the effect of something else. This makes it inauthentic. Most positive people, when pressed, admit that there are a lot of things they are unhappy about. “But I shouldn’t talk about them Matthew because that is negative!!” they tell me.

Not true. To have a host of areas of your life that you are unhappy with and then be positive about them is like putting your head in the sand. I call it the Rose Garden with the Sewer underneath.

Okay. Positivity is important, powerful and life transforming. But it is the natural affect of being able to accept and effectively dealing with all that doesn’t work in your life. That’s where myself and my coaches come in for most people.

Even more importantly, negativity is really good. Negativity creates desire. Negativity is the seed of creativity. Negativity is the fountain of innovation and change. Without negativity we would all be sitting around doing nothing.

Negativity is not so good when you resist it and can’t allow it to exist in your life.

A client of mine sent me this email yesterday in a burst of enthusiasm. I want you to feel like this too, okay? Let me help you.

“I am shifting so fast…. That little resistance point about what I do for a living that popped up in our call, and my working it through that
afternoon was a milestone. Just be happy. Choose joy in this moment, and the next, and the next.

The amount of joy…. Just joy … I am experiencing is mind-blowing. I
spent all of yesterday writing… Writing for the pure pleasure of it….
Writing for me…. No agenda… No plan.. Just this creative flow… And it
feels amazing.

My heart is breaking open. I am feeling such love for people. True love. I
am spending time doing things and connecting with people at a whole new
level. I know you know what I mean… It’s indescribable. Tonight I
connected with a man with no legs, hardly any hands… And we just talked.
This isn’t new for me… I can talk to anyone… But the openness of my
heart. The fullness in my heart…The joy in looking this man in the eyes
and actually SEEING him. I think I caught him off guard. I got so connected
to my humanness, and my spirit.

Matthew I love you so much. This journey is so exciting. I am so in.
whatever happens. WHATEVER happens.. I know I am moving toward God’s big plan for my life. Even in the bigness of all my prior dreams, I sense that
what’s in store for me eclipses it all. How could my human self have any
idea what’s possible when I fully awaken? How could I have spent all those
years driving toward my silly version of ‘success’. No matter, I am on the
pathway, and I have you to thank.”

One of my very powerful clients has been fighting for her financial life. To make things worse, she started having marriage trouble as well. Funny how those so often go together.

She has been resisting everything. “I will not allow myself to be a loser! I’ve never been broke and I’m not about to start at age 58!!” she would spit with venom through her teeth at me. I kept encouraging her to surrender. Often people misunderstand that word. In my world, surrender doesn’t mean to lie down and give up. Surrender means to quit fighting with the wave that you are caught up in, relax, regroup and get ready for the inspiration that follows.

When you are out in the ocean and a big wave hits you, you can fight it but you won’t win. The key is to relax completely and output zero energy. When you do, the opportunity to surface will present itself and when it does you will have the energy to take it.

Same with life. When you go into a calm peaceful state, opportunities present themselves and suddenly magic occurs.

My client finally surrendered. She faced her fears of becoming financially drowned and her marriage dying. She realized that she would be okay either way. As soon as she let go and let God, magic started happening everywhere. Money started trickling in again, which gave her hope. Her new peaceful state started creating more communication between her and her husband and things started to mend. Magic!

This link will take you to an interview I did with Rod McDermott of the McDermott and Bull executive search firm. The show is designed to inspire those who are in search of their next work opportunity. Use the slide advance button on the top right to advance to slide 8 where my interview is. Looking forward to getting your feedback and feel free to share this with anyone in your circle who is in transition.